CINCINNATI—If Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin happened to wake up early Monday and turn on the Channel 5 news, he’d have been greeted—before he even had a shot at pouring a morning cup of coffee—by the umpteen-thousandth replay of last year’s on-court bawl between his Bearcats and the Xavier Musketeers.

It’s been on TV more often than Peyton Manning.

And it was there again Tuesday morning, on the same newscast, about the same time. All that was missing was Don Henley singing “Dirty Laundry” as the tape rolled.

So it probably is best that Cronin isn’t tuning into the news.

Cronin told Sporting News he hasn’t looked at the video of the brawl since he spent a long weekend last December with Cincinnati athletics director Whit Babcock and then-president Gregory Williams, the three of them combing through every detail of every angle of every tape available for the purposes of determining what disciplinary actions to take regarding the players involved. Cronin doesn’t need to see it again. He doesn’t want to see it again. It’s over.

The rivalry is not, though it flirted with extinction.

The game has been moved away from the Cincinnati and Xavier campuses to the downtown U.S. Bank Arena, where it will be staged Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET, with the house split between fans of the two teams and the telecast available on ESPN2. It has been renamed the Crosstown Classic, as though no longer calling it the Crosstown Shootout somehow will drain away the enmity that developed between fans of the two schools and, quite obviously, the players.

The two teams are so much different than they were a year ago. It is intriguing that of the eight players suspended for their roles in the brawl, only three remain, and only Cincinnati center Cheikh Mbodj is a starter. Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates and Xavier’s Kenny Frease and Tu Holloway were seniors last season. Xavier guard Mark Lyons transferred to Arizona. Xavier forward Dez Wells was dismissed from school and Cincinnati reserve Octavius Ellis was dismissed from the program, both over disciplinary issues.

Cincinnati was struggling terribly entering the Shootout last year, and it was in worse shape entering the final 30 seconds against Xavier, essentially a half-minute short of leaving the building with a 5-3 record.

Xavier was soaring, with victories over NCAA-bound Vanderbilt and Purdue already in the bank that led the Musketeers to a No. 8 national ranking.

Cincinnati surged after being forced to redesign its team because of suspensions resulting from the fight and wound up in the Big East Tournament final and Sweet 16. Xavier plunged because it did not have Holloway and Lyons available but regrouped in time to reach at Atlantic 10 final and Sweet 16.

Now, the Bearcats (10-0) are ranked No. 11.

“They’ve got a very, very good team, a veteran team. We’re going to have our hands full,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said. “Mick has given them a lot of freedom this year. None of those kids are greedy basketball players. They share the ball. For our perimeter players, it’s going to be a huge challenge and we realize that.”

Xavier (7-2) is considered to be overachieving with a largely reconstructed roster.

“I think Chris is doing a great job,” Cronin said. “They’re shooting 50 percent from the field. That’s pretty good considering you played a third of your season already. They really execute in their half-court sets. They’re a high execution team. They’re smart. Everybody does the things they can do.

“Their big guys are what we call willing screeners. They screen with a purpose. They’re organized with everything they’re doing on both ends of the floor. They give themselves a chance to win the game by playing to their strengths.”

Although it’s impossible to get past what happened a year ago until they get through 40 minutes of basketball and an orderly handshake line, neither coach seems eager for this game to be about last year’s game.

Cronin didn’t say he designed it this way, but he is pleased the Bearcats had a scheduled road game Saturday against Marshall. That meant being both preoccupied and out of town for all but the early part of the week leading into the Xavier game.

“The best thing for us is we’ve only got to deal with this for three days,” Cronin said. “We’ve got goals to accomplish. We’re trying to be an elite team nationally, trying to get as good as we can get. So we’re focused on us. I have enough veteran guys who understand Xavier has guys who can play. It’s probably easier this year because our team, we’re locked in on what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Cronin plans to give his players a brief lecture on the need to accentuate sportsmanship in Wednesday night. The guys who’ll be listening might not really need to hear that. If you watch the video, at the center of the brawl that is developing is one player trying determinedly to keep teammates out of the mix; that’s Cincinnati point guard Cashmere Wright, now the centerpiece of the team. And scoring star Sean Kilpatrick essentially never leaves the bench area.

Among the Xavier players, current forward Justin Martin moves to pull away Wells and Jeff Robinson assures that Ge’Lawn Guyn is prevented by Bearcats coaches from pursuing Redford and then backs away.

“It’s a bunch of good kids that are trying to get an education and chase their dream of playing basketball,” Cronin said. “That’s what needs to be seen on Wednesday night. We don’t need to get caught up in a rivalry. We play hard every game. It’s not like we can go play harder.”

Yes, it is different between Xavier and Cincinnati. For at least one night, one year, it needs to be.